Intermitent Contact Or Bad Battery?

[GreyShark]

I recently switched my C3 Centurion over to 2x AW 17500 and started having problems. I cleaned the threads and relubed with Nyogel 779ZC, still the same problem. I switched tail caps and still had the problem. I switched bezels and drop ins, still the same problem. I noticed that 2x 17500 is just a little longer than 3x CR123 so I added a spacer to the drop in to make up the difference. I now have somewhere above 95% reliability which is decent but not quite as good as I'm used to.

So my question is, is this to be expected with rechargeables or is there maybe something wrong with my protected 17500's? 2x AW IMR 16340 in other hosts hasn't given me any trouble at all.

 

[GreyShark]

I think I may have just solved this. I realized that I use double o-rings on the tails of my other lights but not on my C3. I added the o-ring and the reliability has been very high since then. My guess is there was a little play on the tail cap that was just enough to sometimes cause a problem but the extra o-ring stabilizes it.